Art Market Updates

Annie Gawlak and Sam Gilliam in the studio in the late 1980s. Photo by Carol Harrison.

Sam Gilliam Lecture Series

Johns Hopkins University and the Sam Gilliam Foundation recently announced the launch of the new Sam Gilliam Lecture Series hosted at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. The series honors the artistic legacy and social justice commitments of the late Washington D.C.-based artist, Sam Gilliam. Launching this March, the series will focus on themes addressed in Gilliam’s life and work, including racial equity, democracy and the transformative power of art, delivered by a variety of prominent artists and speakers.

The Frick Art Research Library, housed in a landmarked building on East 71st Street.

Frick Collection reopens this spring

The Frick Collection has announced that it will reopen its historic buildings on 1 East 70th Street in New York City in April 2025. The first comprehensive renovation and upgrade since 1935, the project will open the mansion’s second floor to the public and create a dedicated space on the first floor for special exhibitions. The renovation will also create designated, state-of-the-art spaces for education, research and public programs; add visitor amenities, including a café and an auditorium; update critical infrastructure, including modernizing conservation studios; and unite the museum and the adjacent Frick Art Research Library.

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), New York Street with Moon, 1925. Oil on canvas, mounted to Masonite, Colección Carmen Thyssen. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

O’Keeffe urbanscapes

An exhibition at the High Museum of Art is the first to critically examine Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, drawings and pastels of cityscapes, placing them in the diverse context of her other compositions of the 1920s and early ’30s. “The exhibition establishes these works not as outliers or as anomalous to her practice but rather as entirely integral to her modernist investigation in the 1920s—abstractions and still lifes made at Lake George in upstate New York and beyond and works made in the Southwest beginning in 1929,” the museum notes. Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” hangs through February 16.

Forrest Bess (1911-1977), Untitled, 1957. Oil on canvas with wood frame. 97⁄8 x 14¼ in. Gift of Adam Kimmel. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Digital image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Thomas Griesel.

Vital Signs

Vital Signs: Artists and the Body features more than 100 works by nearly 65 artists, focusing on “depictions of the body to address the question of what it means to be an individual within society—and how socially sustained categories of gender, race, and identity are rooted in abstraction.” Hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the exhibition draws primarily drawn from the museum’s permanent collection.

The cover of The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt, written by Sam Watters.

New book on Richard Morris Hunt

The recently published The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt captures the illustrated story of the life and 40-year career of architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895), as well as his impact on American culture after the Civil War. Known for his opulent Gilded Age Vanderbilt mansions, including Biltmore, the Breakers and Marble House, Hunt is one of the most esteemed architects of the 19th century. The 312-page book is written by historian Sam Watters and features 200 color illustrations.—